Our second shop

The opening of new store was nothing short of amazing. My mind is still filled with the hangover but I see huge challenges ahead. Before everything, I'd want to blog about it because this is the transcript of the journey and grand opening of the second store should not be missed out. Many congratulate me, and I thank you guys for coming and all the supports. Your flowers, gifts, buying glasses from me, I have endless gratification towards these.

Opening this new store doesn't come easy. We've got to be very rational and objective in making the decision. Thanks to the smooth sailing of the first store, we are able to snowball the capital to opening the second one. When everything is so smooth, we start to fall into the comfort zone. The zone where we feel kinda satisfied, and kinda work lesser. But like aforementioned, it's part of the plan to open new store, and it's a step that we have to take. As much as opening a new store gives us joy and feeling of success, it gives us as much challenges and headache, if not more. This is the very reason of the inertia for us trying to move away from the original plan. 

Now, I feel like everything starts from zero again. It's time to give out flyer with the not-so-thick but gotta thicken it face. Start to worry about everyday sales. Start to worry about maintaining the quality. The competiton, the sustainability and so many more. It feels exactly like the beginning. And to pick yourself up and fight through the challenges, the hurdle is even higher, with your expectation and ego serve as the foundation of the hurdles. Well, this is really what I feel like saying. May the force be with us and really, we need to create the success ourselves. Looking forward to more shops in the very near future. 

Entrepreneurship #12

Start-up industry is booming nowadays; we see new start-ups making headlines on the tech blog almost every week. And the wave has hit Malaysia for quite sometime. What has been supporting the environment is the increasing number of funding organisations and accelerators. I'm always interested to find out how the start-up events look like, how pitching looks like and how talking to investors feels like. The ASEAN Young Entrepreneurs Carnival was the first start-ups alike event that I've attended. Would like to pen down some takeaways from the events:
1. Abundance of opportunity
I always want to find our more about Magic, Cradle, Axiata etc. From what I gathered online, these organisations have been very supportive to new start-ups, in providing mentoring, funding, connections. I finally got to talk to them during the event. Now I'm being more informed with the available resources. There are indeed a lot of platforms to tap on, and thankfully I get to know about these platforms before it's too late.

2. Meeting new faces
The people I met in the event are very passionate about things they do. Many are very pragmatic on the methods of doing things. I met Tripovo, VASE, BEAM and few others. Meeting new faces means gaining more insights on doing things. More brains means more ideas. For instance, BEAM seems to be a very good social network that gathers human resources in start-ups industry. You can look for UI/UX designers, marketing or join their networking event. VASE on the other hand is a start-up that helps you to get survey if you're keen to find out the opinion from public.

3. Exchange idea
There's a question that has been bothering me for quite some time : do we need funding? Glad that I talked to two people there who gave me more insights. The thing is that many start-ups are getting funding and it makes me wonder if we need funding and how will funding help us to grow. Then these two people share with me about their experiences and things to take note. Really didn't expect to get answer from this event!

4. Get challenged
When you're in event like this, you get a lot of questions about your products, services, business plan etc. I was excited to talk about Pott Glasses. But what I've forgotten is that the idea or services we have might not be suitable in the market. So the feedbacks gained are actually very realistic and constructive. With all the feedbacks, I can rethink about the idea before implementing. And if I can answer their questions, it means that we are on the right track. Take feedback with open mind and start doing something on it!

Definitely looking for more event like this!

Entrepreneurship #11

Last Saturday, I got invited to share my entrepreneurship journey with the strong 300 crowd of MBA students from PBS. I thought it'd be a good idea to pen down the entire process, after all it's my virgin experience to talk in such a huge crowd, and I strongly believe that this is one of the many to come. 

When I first gotten a cold mail invitation from Dr Brian, I thought it's a scam, really! Then he called my shop number. "Hi, is this Tai Hau?"

The conversation brought us to a short meet up. We met at Cosan few days later. I was then briefed about the event, and why I was invited. 

After the meeting, I went on to draft my script. It's super duper hard to come out with some informative and credible speech. I adopted the 7 steps method learnt from Steve, and eventually came out with something presentable. 

I was initially stuck with the concept of Human Governance but after talking with few other mastermind members, it seems like everything I do in Pott Glasses embodies the conscience element. Especially for the One For One campaign, human governance plays a major part. 

And so I practiced and practiced. I really wanted to nail it. If I were one of the crowd, spending my Saturday to listen to talk and sharing, I'd expect nothing less than a perfect sharing. Indirectly I'm giving myself a lot of pressure. I remembered a story from a TED speaker where she practiced the speech for more than 30 times. That's the kind of commitment and responsibility one should have should one be given a chance to speak on stage. 

Final rehearsal was to present in front of 7 mastermind member : Steve, Ryan, Carol, Dr Sam, Artus, Sky and Anne. I gave myself 8 out of 10 and glad to receive good feedback.

That last rehearsal 

On the day itself, I woke up pretty early to have breakfast. I don't know if I'm fortunate to sit in the earlier session of the talk (CEO of Kenaga was speaking in the first session) or unfortunate. It's good to meet and chit chat with other speakers, Alex from WordMatters and Amir from AisKosong app. 

Time flew, but at the same time it's feel kinda slower than snail (you see when you're nervous you lose conscious). Eventually we were invited to up to stage. 

"We have Tai Hau from Pott Glasses...."

Couldn't remember how Dr Brian introduced me, all I was thinking was whether I want to sit or stand, how to look at the crowd, how to ask my 2 questions. 

Then I got the mic. Being the first one to speak gave me some advantages. I got their full attention. And slowly, I relied less on my notes. Of course I missed out some points, but I guessed in earned the stage in return. Things got pretty smooth. It all ended with great ovation. Q&A session was more interesting. Everything was unexpected. 

One of the question : how do you compete with big player? 

If I haven't read the book blue ocean strategy, I think I wouldn't know how to put it in words. Thankfully I've read it, studied and applied the strategies. 

"In blue ocean strategy, we talked about profiling, analyse how other companies do and pull down some points for our company at the same time provide other values ..."

And that was pretty awesome too! 

They served us very nice nasi briani and that concluded my virgin stage sharing experience. 

I give myself 9 out of 10. Being comfortable and knowing what you're talking on stage is very important. You really don't want to rush through everything for the sake of finishing the "prepared" speech. What's more important is to engage the crowd from time to time, putting more emotions and make them stay curious. More room to improve. 

I'm very grateful to have a chance to speak and Dr Brian, if you're reading this, thank you for inviting me, once again. 

Till the next one.

From the left : Dr Brian, Alexandra, Amir



In action!

After all this is the selfie era :)

Entrepreneurship #10

So many things happened.

Interview after interview, and also our virgin lookbook photo shooting. Many things in my bucket list got ticked off. Feel very good to be interviewed and able to work with model and photographer.

However, we also elevate our level every time we achieved our goals. So here I am today, brain filled with so many things to do, so many challenges to feel.

Firstly, I am preparing to present to the big corporations, to see if they buy my idea. I prepared my prezi presentation for 5 hours only to receive bad feedbacks from my friend from corporate world. And there're so many things mentioned that I really did not expect. Gosh, yet another time I need to step up to play at higher level, I need to have a breakthrough. 

One thing true about entrepreneurship is you have to have frequent breakthrough. There is really no such thing as complacent at your comfort zone. And the only person to push you is yourself; if you don't move, there's no one going to push you forward. Embrace the challenges and keep pushing forward. I'm tired, but I will continue.

Then, learnt about sealing deal. In dealing business, you should set the boundaries very clear, and never give way for the sake of sealing the deal. Whatever agreed before signing the deal will serve as the ground rule for the deal to function. And we often overlook whatever we promised. Do not ever agree on a deal with slight disadvantage on ourselves, even just a bit. This take training and firm stand. 

I am tired. I need a rest.

Entrepreneurship #9

Talk to the person you want to talk to, more like the person you model after. When I first started this business a lot of naysayers and people who don't have the same mindset gave me negative feedback. Hold me back a little definitely, and from time to time I felt very down. But today, I am where I am now, because of the urge to succeed, because I've read somewhere that someone reached a pretty high stage within a short period of time, because I believe boldly, because I just thought that it could happen, because I pushed myself pretty hard and kept every low time to myself, because I know I'm the only who can change things to what I want, because I know I have to fight for it, so here I am today, business going well (but I'm not satisfied yet). And today I talked to a friend about bringing it to another stage, immediately he told me that it's gonna talk more than 6 months. I would have felt discouraged if I hear this 6 months ago, after all we are all conformist, we like to get assurance. But these are not the people we should hear from, instead we should listen to people we look up to. They've achieved what we want to do. If we play the game at higher level, we are supposed to believe to ourselves and make things happen. 

The point is that potential is unlimited, don't limit yourself because someone told you that you can't, very likely the person couldn't do it that's why he told you so. Talk to someone who's done it, he will encourage you, guide you and tell you it's possible. Find the right group, then you can fly higher.

A long lost feeling. Just eye contact. Two collisions. It's amazing. It's worth remembering. It's the feeling of love in first sight. It comes and goes. But at least it happened.

Entrepreneurship #8

After 9 exhausting months preparing for Pott Glasses, I finally signed up a course to learn more. Yes, it's that generic, to learn more. I enjoy learning, things that I like and it's also education that brings you to a higher level. Of course, I had another intention, that is to meet more people, of same mind set and experience.
It happened by chance, after I was convinced by Steve. It caused two sleepless night after talking to him because I realised that I was playing the game alone, without any proper support and guidance.
Long story short, I'd love to share what I learned in this 3 days course

1. Sales pitch
Off hand, I couldn't give a proper and convincing sales pitch. This is so so so important, be it meeting new people or selling my glasses. The sales pitch comes with an intention to sell, so it must be convincing. But I really did not know how to craft one. I always see someone who is really good in selling things or himself but just couldn't pick up the skill. This course thought me how to go about this in a very systematic way. Pretty good!

2. The consistent positive energy
Emotional fluctuation is what I often experience. This gets more frequent after I embarked on the Pott Glasses journey. But it's really good to have Steve to remind me to stay high energy, wipe out all the negative voices, even the little one.

3. Meet really good people
This guy saw that I am one of the youngest and asked about my age. He said he made 2M when he was 25. OMG! I was really shocked. But at the same time I increase the level of possibility. Becoming millionaire by 27 is very possible. Love how meeting all these living examples make me to not only dare to dream, but also find ways to make things work.

4. The power of creation
When everyone around is either entrepreneur or aspiring to be entrepreneur, I feel like living in an environment that is full with possibilities. Though the economy is not doing well, I did not hear a single word about this issue throughout the course. Rather, everyone is talking about creating new business, new collaboration, networking, expanding the business etc. This is what I like about entrepreneurship. It is always about self-creation. Looking for money? Create a way to earn it. Looking for networking? Start finding ways.

5. Stop looking down at yourself
I am 25 so I do not have network. I am 25 so I am inexperience. I think this is what hinder me from grabbing a lot of opportunities. So why can others do it but not me? On top of that, make use of this 25, people like our energy, they are willing to pull us up :)

The journey is getting more exciting. Be responsible to myself, make sure I give my very best in things I do and push through all the challenges.